My last two records that I made were both quite pointed in one direction and I think I do my best stuff when it's all over the map, when there's a couple traditional things, a couple pretty rocking things.
The focus in the Western pictorial tradition is on the body of Christ, the bit you can paint, the Nativity and the infancy, but above all the Passion, where you can find images for every stage and every moment.
I've always admired the tradition of storytellers who sat in the public market and told their stories to gathered crowds. They'd start with a single premise and talk for hours - the notion of one story, ever-changing but never-ending.
Every Yom Kippur, Jewish tradition requires a strict spiritual inventory. You aren't supposed to just sit around feeling guilty, but to take action in the real world to set things right.
The Real Self is dangerous: dangerous to the established church, dangerous to the state, dangerous to the crowd, dangerous to tradition, because once a man knows his real self, he becomes an individual.
Here is an old tradition badly in need of return: You have to earn your way into politics. You should go have a life, build a string of accomplishments, then enter public service....
Spirituality is not primarily about values and ethics, not about exhortations to do right or live well. The spiritual traditions are primarily about reality...an effort to penetrate the illusions of the external world and to name its underlying truth...
It would have been convenient to be gay. Just because of the grooming, the narcissism, stuff like that. But I have this kind of roaring heterosexuality. Traditional, uncomplicated heterosexuality, an almost cliched Robin Askwith thing.
The invention of Bob Dylan with his guitar belongs in its way to the same kind of tradition of something meant to be heard, as the songs of Homer.
Now, if King Crimson accepts responsibility for innovating its own tradition, you can't accept responsibility for the audience. And there is an enormous tangible weight of expectation, which comes from an audience attending a King Crimson concert.
Again, I was influenced by my father, who was very much an atheist and took pride in combating the traditional or orthodox forms of Judaism, which his parents and which my mother's parents were very steeped in.
For me, and most of the other players, too, if you had to pick one of the four Grand Slams, you would pick Wimbledon. It's got tradition, it's got atmosphere, and it's got mystique.
There are some ghost stories in Japan where - when you are sitting in the bathroom in the traditional style of the Japanese toilet - a hand is actually starting to grab you from beneath. It's a very scary story.
In early Islam, it was an absolute tenet that the prophet was not to be worshipped. The prophet was a messenger. And one of the things that's happened in Islam is this cult of the prophet, which to my view is counter to the original tradition.
My mother came from St. Thomas. I heard that melody and all I did was actually adapt it. I made my adaptation of sort of an island traditional melody. It did become sort of my trademark tune.
If you look not just at the Arab Spring, but at what I call the 'Youth Spring' that has started in Europe, young people are starting to find a voice, and they are not looking to the traditional media to reflect that.
When I started my company, many people said I shouldn't launch it as a retail concept because it was too big a risk. They told me to launch as a wholesaler to test the waters - because that was the traditional way.
While the older generation is content to sit around and critique culture, that culture is moving beyond them. At some point the traditional church and all of the expressions of that church will become essentially irrelevant.
I'm very much influenced by your traditional comic book artists like Jack Kirby, Alex Toth and Walter Simonson. Their styles were sort of what I was gravitating towards.
I was the editor of the school newspaper and in drama club and choir, so I was not a popular girl in the traditional sense, but I think I was known for being relatively scathing.
It's not where you are from (basically it's not based upon tradition) that determines who you are. But, it's really based upon your personality on how people will view and treat you.
